


Swing Step

by MorriganFearn



Series: Little Islands and Territories [3]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Dancing, F/M, Fluff, Historical Hetalia, Magical Realism, Slow Burn, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:27:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28329726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorriganFearn/pseuds/MorriganFearn
Summary: September 1944. Aland shows up on Faroes' door step, and they talk about anything but the war. Then they dance and talk some more. Romantic fluff, with historical undertones.
Relationships: Åland Islands (Hetalia)/Faroe Islands (Hetalia)
Series: Little Islands and Territories [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1673191
Kudos: 3





	Swing Step

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fairywine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairywine/gifts).



> If it posts before 3 AM EST, it's still technically Christmas. I love you and wanted to edit this a lot more.

**Swing Step**

**September 1944**

Freed for the evening from responsibilities by a strongly worded telegram from Uncle Arthur, Astrid turned on the radio. Leaning forward to play with the dial until the static was quiet and the broadcast was clear felt almost like too much effort. As soon as she had realized that she was free for the evening, everything had felt like too much effort.

But it would be so nice to doze with the radio on, and her stove keeping her feet warm. It was only a few minutes of leaning forward in the chair, a few moments, really. Such a small price to pay for comfort on a wet, blustery evening. Once she found the clearest signal, she could lean back in the chair with ratty cushions that had been _salvaged_ in 1850 [1]. Faroes had never really bothered to find out the rest of its history. The hard wood and floral upholstery was a reminder of one of the more exciting moments in _her_ history, and who cared after that?

The radio noise ran clean, and Faroes leaned back, smiling. News, delivered in precise British tones, filled her living room, and for a moment Faores closed her eyes. Of course, as soon as she actually surrendered to tiredness, thoughts whirred through her head. Maybe that restless contrary energy had been Anko's gift to her. Or Father's. Or Astrid had always been this way, and the larger lands that had taken her borders into their own merely encouraged her willfulness. Well, her mind turned and turned.

She had to find replacements for her nylons. There was the problem of the ancient sausage in her icebox: should she feed it to her new puppy given its iffiness, or eat it anyway to set and example of patriotic duty? One should feed the useful hungry before wasting expensive food on pets.

Astrid gave up and opened her eyes again. For all that absolutely no time had passed since she sat down, the radio was droning away on some new program. Maybe she should try picking up Radio Orange once more. That had been a fun afternoon with Agnes and the girls climbing all over the roof, doing dangerous things with the wiring, and finally being sighed at because the broadcast was incomprehensible. But scaring her landlady out of a year's worth of life was less fun if it was just Astrid. Maybe she should get up and do a crossword. She still had a pile of old papers for wrapping lunches and presents upstairs. There had to be an old crossword up there. But that meant climbing stairs and hunting through papers.

Or! She could finally hem the skirt of her spare uniform the way she had been meaning to since Agnes had mentioned that no one at HQ would notice an extra inch of calf. The people who mattered would, of course, and that was the point, silly Astrid. The idea was nice. After the last war skirts had been on the rise and with this one, well, maybe the extra inch meant that a win wasn't that far away.

Maybe by the end of this one she would have the perfect length figured out for at least one of those people who mattered. Astrid grinned sleepily at her own silliness, knowing her friend wouldn't notice, and eyed the door to her bedroom. The uniform was in the laundry basket, and all she would have to do would be to get up. But not being able to sleep and getting up were different things. She snuggled into the ratty pillows, and played with the hem of her “day off” dress as she tried to find the energy to rise.

There had been longer, harder weeks. This year the question was not would England win the war, but when would England win the war, and by how much. France was already free. The radio droned on about Allied troops fighting in Belgium—If only geography had placed Denmark in a more Westward direction. Anko was unlikely to be freed until Germany itself was under concentrated attack. The North Sea was too dangerous to send the whole of the British navy to Norway, despite Faroes' dearest wishes.

A cold nose bumped wetly at her hand, causing the Faroes to look down. Blæsevejr wagged his trailing tail happily, and bumped her hand once more.

“You want food, little man?” Faroes inquired, smiling slightly.

Thank goodness British rationing had not hit her land the way it was at Arthur's table. Pets were a luxury, and she was really spoiling her little mongrel rotten, but he _had_ been a gift from Scotland, and he didn't eat so much that she minded the expense of buying condemned meat from the butchers. Though there was the suspect sausage. He'd happily chewed on things going green with mold, surely rancid sausage would be no trouble. Besides, he would was going to be dead in another twenty years or less. She could give him a home and food for now. It would hardly be a burden to her, Føroyar.

Nothing is when you live forever, she thought wistfully.

As Faroes rose from her chair with more energy for her puppy than for her own tasks, she paused to look at the corner where the voluminous Tyr snored his sheepy snores. Luckily he was able to browse on the grass, or Faroes was not sure what she would have done about his lazy behind. She found it so hard to come up with grain these days. Oh well, he was fat and old and immortal as well. If he missed a few extra treats that wouldn't do him any more harm than shortening his temper.

Which was short enough. She glared, but her choice in his company was much like her choice in relatives, which was none at all. Tyr was part of the islands, and she was part of the islands, and as long as there were rock and grass, and the boats put out to sea they were stuck with one another. That didn't mean that they couldn't make life hard for each other.

Blæsevejr barked, and she headed for the kitchen. Just over the stove, the single window in the room was covered with conscientious curtains, but she heard the beating of autumn rain against the glass as the wind blew. Ah, maybe this was the real reason her mind was scattering all over the place. Ideas were coming down with the rain. “Well, it's as good a theory as any,” Astrid told Blæsevejr.

The icebox sausage smelled no better than it had yesterday, and the little white fuzz had grown. This would almost certainly cause stomach trouble. Better to give it to the dog. Definitely. It was not a betrayal of principal. “It really isn't.”

Blæsevejr stared at her with the most serious expression of agreement in his black eyes. Of course it wasn't a betrayal of principal. Certainly not.

Astrid broke the sausage in thirds, tossing the first to the floor. Blæsevejr barked in thanks and then began to snarf the first section, loudly enough to drown out the radio. She contemplated patriotic duty, and the chance that she was teaching her dog bad habits. Then Astrid returned to the living room, tossing the second third as soon as the slurping stopped. “But you don't get any more if you whine.”

Turning up the dial she caught the last of the Home Service. The news caster was announcing some lotto winnings being donated to a widows and orphans fund in Hampshire. Astrid sighed. While she was up, she might as well get that crossword. Maybe there would be a nice murder mystery coming up or something less serious, at least. If the weather weren't so bad she could—have done absolutely nothing in the dark of evening, but it would have been a start.

She started as a knock shook her door. Almost simultaneously, the wind battered against the front room windows, bringing with the rain the strong salty smell of a land throwing their land-ness about with abandon. Blæsevejr began to bark with excited fury. Astrid rushed to the door, and flung it open to reveal a sodden hat and slicker holding together a man's shape.

“My gracious! Åland did you bring that rain up the steps with you? We just got them roofed over this summer—” Astrid began attempting a smile.

Her fellow set of islands laughed damply, stepping a little closer to the light from her living room lamp. “I—well, you know how I like, uh, weather,” the lines of his face grew even deeper at this poor lie. “I—would you mind if I came in? Only, I wanted to see you. It's, things aren't good. Er, I mean—look, I'm sorry if this is presuming. I thought you'd be a friend.”

“Of course you should come in. I'm not supposed to be showing light anyway,” Astrid realized that she still gripped greasy molding sausage as she gestured his way indoors. Quickly she tossed the rest to the still growling young sheep dog at her ankles. “Er, the coat rack is right here.”

Åland dripped water. Astrid wondered if he had gone swimming before arrival. There was a reason that they had put a roof over the rickety stairs up to her second floor flat. Well, a reason besides the practical one that snow had taken out two of the wooden stairs in January, and her landlady did not wish to have to replace the whole set in the next few years. The tin roof on its little trestles was a wonder against the weather, and gave her more protection for her bike.

But once his coat was shed, and the damp article that must be called a hat—because no rain cloud made a residence of someone's head—hung on the peg beside it, he seemed much less weather beaten and more simply beaten.

Åland glanced longingly at the light of the living room with its horrible horsehair couch and the salvaged chair, and then stared down at his soaked pants. “I got a little excited when I was on the pier and decided to challenge the sea to a splashing contest.”

“Well that explains it.”

“I'm not sure that it does,” Jakob began scowling, though this was rather ruined when he tried to thrust his hands deeply into his pockets and discovered that his wet pants refused the operation. Settling for a slightly pink expression of embarrassment he mumbled: “Thanks.”

“It's fine. Here, sit. You look a wreck,” With what she thought was great tactical planning, Astrid pointed at the horsehair sofa. No matter how wet Jakob had managed to get while playing with the waves that horrible couch wouldn't mind one bit, and if she was lucky it would take to mold, and then she would have an excuse to get rid of it.

Jakob returned her gracious hostessing with nothing more than a grunt. “I'll ruin it. Besides, you haven't even asked me why I'm here.”

“I assume that we'll get to that sooner or later,” Astrid pointed out, shifting back and forth on her heels, trying not to think of greasy sausages and how much she needed to wash her hands right now. “In your own time, and perhaps when Blæsevejr isn't busy snarffing his food too loudly to talk.”

Jakob tried to wring out a bit of his sweater, nevertheless. The yellows and blues were strong and lovely against undyed gray. Astrid wondered who had knit it for him. It actually matched the sad remains of the hat that was slowly dripping in the corner.

“So, please?” Astrid gestured to her living room. “Just wait a moment, and I can get you something to drink.”

She escaped to the dark kitchen before Jakob could protest any more. Did she even have anything to drink? There should be beer, but beer was—exactly what you gave to friends who didn't need to be impressed. Washing her hands with the hard soap, Astrid considered the hostessing alternatives, but her precious bottles were probably the best move [2].

By the time she came back to the living room, clean and bearing beer, Jakob had perched gingerly on top of the horsehair, his hands hovering as close to the radiator pipes as he could manage. Astrid stopped in the doorway, considering for a second how nice he looked with the yellow lamp light glinting from his fair hair, and the deep reserve neatly washed from his face by the warmth. Very few people must see this side of him.

“Here, have a bottle.”

“Thanks,” he slid forward to grasp the base, and slid back. “This couch. It is, ah, very slidey.”

Astrid returned to her own chair, shrugging. “Yeah, well, it's one of those old horsehair monstrosities. I've been meaning to replace it for decades.”

“And yet here it is, Lazybones.”

“I'm not being lazy! It's hard to get a lot of things around here, and you should never throw away anything until it is past mending.”

“Mmmhmm. So you're cheap.”

“Thrifty,” Faroes popped the cap from her bottle with decided vehemence.

Jakob grinned just a bit, and she hoped he would slide right off the horrible couch, wet trousers and all. “You know, you could import furniture at nominal fees from a usefully neutral set of islands that I know of.”

“You schemer! Pirate!” Astrid widened her eyes and placed a shocked hand to her virtuous bosom.

“I'm only making the suggestion. I'm quite good at making chairs and tables. And of course you'd get a good discount.”

“I suspect you of opportunism, whatever the discount.”

“It's the exact same discount that I would give to all young ladies of my acquaintance. Not to be baulked at by the thrifty.”

“I know discounts a plenty. I can get what I need from Anko, when he's freed. Hey! What's that expression for? Anko hasn't done anything to you!”

Åland's face had shifted back into the weary lines he had brought with him to her doorstep. His expression reminded her of something, although she could not have put her finger exactly on what. But certainly it was nothing good. He stared blearily at her central heating once more, and took a drink.

“I didn't mean anything by it,” he muttered.

Astrid tried to suspend her disbelief. “Well, you must be having the worst case of indigestion, then—”

“Maybe I just don't see a point in talking about this blasted war any longer! That's all that you ever talk about, you know! 'Oh, when will Anko be free?' 'I can't imagine what's happening to Uncle Arthur, with Gerry being so rough on him.' 'Oh the Americans are so grand, don't you think?' 'Jolly lucky we have the Soviets helping us.'”

Astrid recoiled from the falsetto phrases he flung at her. “I never say 'jolly lucky'!”

With a shifting of eyes from the horsehair end of life, she suspected that Jakob was regretting the outburst. “Well. You act like you should.”

“I don't think I know anyone who says 'jolly lucky.' I think it's something the Americans invented to be mean half the time.”

“I'm sure England says it. And if England does, than you do know someone who says it. Which makes you a bit of a lying scoundrel, doesn't it?”

“I'm a lying scoundrel? You're the one who's lying. Or, at least, grossly misinformed about the usage of jolly lucky,” Astrid amended. “Besides, I know you don't like the Soviets. I'd never say such a thing.”

They drank their drinks, and in the gap where their conversation should have been, the wireless glided, adding music to helpfully remind them about the lack of voices. Astrid considered turning the self important box off, but getting up under the weight of Jakob's preoccupied glare was looking like too much effort. Was this going to be their whole evening?

“Father had to sue for peace.”

“I'd heard. But they said on the radio that you were well out of it.” She had listened very carefully, and read the papers to be sure.

“So? It's my _ family _ ,” He took another swig of beer. “It looks like Ivan's going to take my sister. God. He sent one of his goons to hang around and try to look menacing since the treaty began. Vile pipsqueak is just ghosting around Dad's house as though we don't know what a thug looks like if he pretends to be a guest.”

“That's why you came to see me?”

“Yeah. I dunno. I had some pretty wild plans about stealing your harpoon while I was crossing, but then I stepped on the dock—and nearly fell in the sea again—and, well. I'm neutral. I'm _always_ neutral. I'll remain neutral. I'm still with Father that way.”

“Is that what you want?” Astrid put down her beer and leaned forward. Bleak, that was the word. He looked like a barren plain where the snow and wind had pinned the grass to the earth, never to grow again. That kind of expression didn't belong on a boy made of salt and deep trees.

Jakob fiddled with his bottle. “I think so. Finland is overbearing and forgetful, and just plain weird. But—Karelia doesn't need me. I don't think Finland does either sometimes, but someone is going to have to take care of him if Karelia goes.”

“Oh,” The radio murmured on and Astrid was certain that anything she said right now would mean just as much as the droning clarinet. “Well. Anyway, you don't have to think about that if you don't want to.”

Oh, that was beyond idiotic. It was like thinking about Denmark. Any time she was told not to worry, she worried. Astrid should _engage_ Jakob. Make him forget rather than tell him to forget. It worked perfectly well when Greenland was being a beast and scaring her so badly that she couldn't think about Denmark and Germany, and the whole stupid utter mess.

Jakob picked up his bottle again. “I thought you'd see it like that.”

Jumping up, Astrid reached out a hand. “That's because I'm sensible.”

Jakob snorted, his bright blue eyes shining glassily as they rose over his bottle to travel up her arm. “No you're not. I'm sensible. I can fish. You run around shouting a lot with a harpoon.”

“I fish, too! Now, c'mon. Up! On your feet,” She grabbed his bottle hand and hauled.

As always, Jakob wore his trees on his skin, and the strength of the seas rolled in his muscles. It was her personal knowledge, and Astrid smiled to herself as he crashed into her, unready for her plans. The Faroes caught Åland with a laugh, steadying him long enough to lean on his chest, and whisper in his ear: “C'mon, I'm going to teach you something horrid and American and scandalous. You can't learn this while fishing.”

Her first step to the right bewildered Åland. Astrid tried to concentrate on holding his hands with just enough tension, like those nice young Canadians had talked about [3]. Right step (one trilled a sax), double step (a-two it continued, and the drums kept the beat), left step, double step, rock back (on a trumpet). He obviously didn't hear the music from the radio—or at least didn't connect it with the way she pulled him with her. He didn't even manage to complain as she pushed him back to where they had started, possibly a little closer than before. “Okay. So, you sort of felt that? We're holding both hands now because you don't have it down yet, but soon we'll only be connected through my right, your left.”

“Are—are we dancing?” Jakob's face was inscrutable, but Astrid suspected that it was only surprise at the unexpected that was keeping him there. Any moment now he would call off the whole thing as childish, and yank his hands from hers, callouses and all.

“Yes, we are. You're my mirror. It's really easy. I step right,you step left. Then we do a quick double step. I step left, you step right—double step,” Astrid stamped her feet down with more force than necessary. “And now for the surprise finish, I rock step back, you rock step forward, back, and we're home!”

Was it her imagination or was he actually smiling a bit? Counting, waiting for the music to fall into time with them, Astrid began once more, and Jakob followed. They rock stepped into Astrid's chair. An overly enthusiastic double step sent Blæsevejr running from the room. A misreading of intentions caused both to side step into each other seconds later. Astrid felt that it was time to take the training wheels off, and removed her left hand, immediately causing Jakob to flail about with his arm for a bit. She laughed at his stranded fish routine, and her laugh seemed to travel through her right arm and into his palm.

He kept that laugh close, hiding it in a grin. The song changed over, and as they rock stepped to an announcer telling them that this was the BBC, he pulled her ever so slightly closer than he should have. “At some point we get to do spins and tricks, yeah?”

“Not in this living room, Mr. Fisherman.”

But they were off again. The wireless obliged them by giving the nine o'clock news, and Astrid thought there probably wasn't anything better to dance to. Jakob kept his eyes on her, and she was almost too scared to look anywhere else. They were turning together connected by just a hand and excitement. If she looked left or right she would see something they had almost broken, or the next wrong step, but if they just kept looking at each other, she could swing in and out for the rest of the night. For a moment, she forgot that this wasn't a dance hall, and that she hadn't taught Jakob the move.

Her attempt to turn brought them together sharply in a tangle of limbs and they careened into the table with the radio. Everything fell. Jakob, Astrid, the wireless, the frail table mat made by a girl long dead and sold at a fair that had not happened in fifty years, and the rickety end table—one example of a distracted attempt by Denmark of placating his little girl with the gifts of Norway—crashed to the floor.

Miraculously, Alvar Lidell continued talking about the execution of a man for the murder. Faroes lay against Åland, wanting to preserve the mysterious moment for as long as possible.

His arms drew around her. “Are you alright?”

She was warm and Jakob was hugging her. She could feel stubble on his cheek and it jabbed into her jaw. Her living room was a complete mess. The end table might have taken a battering that put the worst of Blæsevejr's chewing to shame. She was on her floor, hugging Jakob, and they were quite warm together.

“Yes. Alright I think. You look like you're sitting on something painful,” Astrid assessed.

“A piece of table, I think.”

Astrid tried to get up, but for a while, it was too much effort. And Jakob kept his arms around her. They smiled. For a moment, they even ginned like the fools. At the door Blæsevejr whined. Okay, they really had to get up.

The thing poking Jakob in the back turned out to have been a part of the radio frame. Astrid examined the radio as Jakob righted the table. She declared the wireless sound, and dropped it on her chair. Jakob fished the table mat from under the horsehair sofa. He returned the mat to the table, and everything was about as right in the living room as it was going to get that evening.

They sat down on the horsehair couch together. They slid off together. The floor, dusty and dirty in its corners because Astrid had neglected her spring cleaning once again, seemed serviceable. They leaned together companionably. Jakob stared at the radio enthroned upon the salvaged chair. “I've been all over, you know,” he murmured at last.

“Mmm?”

“All over. I've seen Bremerhaven, and Aberdeen, and Bergen, and Vigo. All over, and it's the small things that are missing. Like the wireless. Small things that people can't have.” Jakob's hand found Astrid's again, and he leaned his head on her shoulder, as though the weight of everything rested there.

Blæsevejr trotted up to them, and nosed his way between. Astrid let him. He was a young dog, and she had decades. What she had those decades for, she wasn't quite sure yet. It was on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't think of anything better. Decades more for nights like this. Her thumb rubbed circles on Jakob's palm.

“You made a deal with a devil to win, you know.”

“Your devil. He's just an ally,” she could say that. It was alright now.

Jakob's sigh blew against her neck like a bitter cold wind. Maybe it was true, and Suomi was the birthplace of winter, forever marked by the old general. “Yes. My devil. Yours is the one holding Bergen, and telling people it's illegal to own a wireless set.”

“Or dance to a tune made by unsuitable people.”

“And dance unsuitable dances,” Jakob agreed.

They fell into a drowsy silence. However, the drone of the radio became distracting. Astrid rose, and turned it off. She gazed down at her guest on the floor. “I have sheets and a blanket, if you're staying the night.”

“I'll go back to the boat.”

“Oh?”

“Wouldn't you prefer your nice familiar berth to sleeping on a strange floor—or worse, that horrible sofa?”

There wasn't much to defend, but Astrid made the half-hearted attempt. “It's a very nice sofa.”

“Only in your books. It keeps throwing me off.”

“That's how you can tell that it has taste.”

Jakob smiled again. He didn't look as bleak as before. Just tired. “We—we should try to dance again.”

“We should.”

“I don't know if I'll have a wireless,” Jakob admitted. “Father's been talking about selling his furniture and moving into one of the old factories. There's always a shipyard or two that could use me.”

Ahh. He did not mean dancing in the near future, then. This was After the War. And After the War, neutral autonomous region notwithstanding, looked much different for him, than it did for her. “So, you're not coming back tomorrow?”

“I might be tempted to steal your harpoon and then leave.”

Astrid snickered. “Trust me, that would not be pleasant. Norway gave it to me in the old days. Back when storms mattered.”

Jakob levered himself to his feet, swaying slightly. He held out his hand, once again. They shook hands like old business colleagues. Not like people who had danced and laughed, and made a wreck of a living room. Astrid wished it was more, but she could feel the thanks in his handshake. She felt trees and sea and ships once again. It was Åland's own brand of open air and water. Not whatever cold winter had been laying in his bones when he came to her doorstep.

There was no reason to let him go quite yet, though. She didn't want him to leave-leave without a smile on his face. It wasn't much, of course, but maybe a smile would see him through, and she probably had just the thing. “One moment, let me get my coat.”

“Uh, why?”

“Because it's raining too much to go out without one,” Faroes twitched aside a curtain to look at the dark windows. “Yeesh. It's not sheep weather, but I really don't like the looks of it.”

“I don't need an escort back to my own boat.”

Honestly. Faroes tried counting to ten in her head. She finally breathed out, and confronted her guest, eye to eye. “Mister, I know my weather, and even if I didn't, if I ever tell you you need an escort around here, you do. I thought we'd had this discussion, years ago.”

“Not that many years ago,” Jakob muttered, more into his collar than to his hostess.

“All the more reason for you not to have forgotten. Anyway, this isn't really escort duty, aside from the fact that the wind might decide to carry you off if I'm not there. I have something I want to show you on the way back. It's down by the harbor.”

“You're going to prevent the wind from carrying me off?” Åland quickly raised his hands. “I don't doubt that you would. Plenty of odder things have happened recently.”

“And not so recently, too. Just hope I don't have to prove my word to you, and we should get on fine,” Faroes tugged on the drawstrings of her coat's hood, before she caught his expression.

Her living room light did not do much to illuminate the hallway leading to the stairs, so her impression could have been mistaken. But she would have staked three sausages for Blæsevejr on the fact that not only was he smiling, just a little bit about the eyes, there was something almost affectionate in it. If asked, Faroes would have said she was clearly winning the friend game. Winning was who she was, and this was yet more proof of her powers.

But still, just about the eyes wasn't a real full smile. “Well?” she grabbed the torch from under the umbrella stand. One say she really would have to do a real get organized spring cleaning. Not tonight, though. “Are you coming?”

With that, she opened her door, and felt her laugh snatched by the playful jaws of a gust of wind, carrying with it the rain that fed her grass, and poured into her rivers. The little tin roof covering the stairway to reach her apartment over the garage rattled ominously in the weather. Ah, her storms were the best. Faroes fought the urge to throw open her arms to hug the wildness that had stolen her laugh. She did not bother restraining her feet from skipping down the rain damp stairs, though she twirled at the bottom to keep a watchful eye on her guest.

“Careful, there!”

“What?”

Wind buffetted the stairs and Åland. She could feel his water soaked shape against that treacherous gust as clearly as she felt the shapes of her rocks pressed against the wind, or the teeth of the waves in the sea. God almighty, but storms were glorious. A laugh welled inside her throat for a moment, even though she knew the wind was probably making Åland's footing more nightmarish than the dancing. It wasn't fair, but this was all her, the weather, the wind, and the night on the rocks, grass streaming wetly all around them as it marched around the sleeping town wrapped around a harbor.

“Careful,” and now he managed to slip through the air currents to be by her side, his voice pitching louder.

She did laugh, then, grabbing his hand, and turning to meet the gale. “Don't worry. Isn't it lovely?”

The rain smashed fruitlessly against the rock of her skin. For a delirious moment, Faroes wished that her dreams as a girl could come true, and she could make lightning form against the peaks—most of which were on other islands, and even if he was holding her hand, what if Jakob couldn't see her land as she saw it now, a gathered light within the salt and storm, each rock reaching for the sky right through her skin? She couldn't even begin to ask, now, as weather enveloped her, washing away the rest of the world until it was just the two of them, his cold hand in hers.

She looked over her shoulder. “C'mon, I'm going to show you something!”

Whether he understood or not, she began to sprint down the gravel road, practically dancing with the wind. Only this dance made her hold fast to his hand, as some small part remembered for her that not many could hold their own on her land without her to protect them in weather like this.

When they reached the harbor, his feet almost matched hers, moving back and stepping forth as the tide rolled in, and the storm rolled with it. By the time Astrid reached the non-descript shed Uncle Arthur was somehow, delightfully, foolishly convinced she knew nothing about, she was almost sure of Åland—near on convinced he knew exactly what must be done to walk amid rain and wind, waiting for lightning.

He was the one who opened the door, and pulled them both inside. In the yawning darkness the outside world fell back to the patter and swoosh of rain against wood. She felt the loss, even though this darkness hummed with warmth to her skin and senses. Could Jakob, practically freezing where her hand gripped his palm to palm, feel it? Astrid sighed. “I know I'm mad, but I wish we'd been outside just a bit longer.”

Åland coughed. “That's not—It's not bad, not necessarily. Just. I like breathing. Air. Not water. Wow. I feel like my ears are ringing. You're right about it not being sheep weather. Can't think of a sheep who'd want to be out in that.”

“Oh—uh, we don't call real storms sheep weather because sheep go out in it. More like—the weather's so strong it starts flinging them around.”

Even though she couldn't see his face she knew he was staring at her with something approaching disbelief. He probably even had it mixed in with a scowl. Astrid grinned. “I know you don't believe me.”

“Oh no, I do. Can't not believe anyone who _revels_ in what we just walked through so much. I don't remember you being this excited during that gale a few years back.”

“It never feels like this when I'm on the sea,” she confessed. Somehow, in the dark, she had managed to find his other hand, and that was chill, too. She grasped them both, bringing them closer together, and willing the heat in her skin to seep into him. “Also, you were so busy. You didn't have time to notice me.”

“I noticed enough.”

“Not nearly, if you didn't think I would drag you through a small storm for the fun of it.”

“The fun of it? You were showing off—”

“Of course I was showing off! It's fun. I'm good at this. But I had more in mind than just showing off. See here?”

“Not really,” Åland grumbled. “It's really dark. You haven't even turned on a light.”

“They haven't wired this shed. Probably never will. Humans forget about it too easily, and I'm no hand with a breaker box. But come on, even though it's dark, you can feel it, can't you? The way it wants to be out on the ocean in the storm, tearing through air and water like lightning?”

Faroes didn't even feel embarrassed by the way her voice nearly cracked on the last words. Nor how she let the energy still spilling though her send her into a minor twirl. After all, at the end of her invisible fingers, Åland matched and twirled with her motion. She heard his soaking wet boots squeak with rubber on the earth of the floor, so new against the old weight Arthur shut in here, thinking that some how, on her own soil Faroes wouldn't know that her best hunting tool sat, waiting for the next moment to flash against the sky.

Åland pulled the twirl in close, his body beginning to be a warm presence at last just beyond Astrid's skin. “You're kidding me—”

“Now's your chance, I suppose,” Astrid grinned. “If you can pick it up. Careful, I may have remade everything so it's like the new ones, but this one's old. It bites.”

“Your harpoon,” Jakob breathed out, and then laughed. It was half that desperate empty laugh of earlier, and half incredulity at the weight of everything suggested. “You _are_ mad. I _was_ mad. Just—you can't have taken it seriously. Me. I mean. My raving plans.”

“Well, no, I don't take it seriously that you would try to take something of mine without permission,” Faroes considered, stepping back half a pace, as though Åland was more comprehensible from an arm length apart. “But I do take seriously that you wouldn't take a piece of me now that you know where it is. Without better planning than you exhibited trying to fight the sea, at any rate.”

“I can't believe anyone thinks a fishing rod will do in comparison to this,” he mumbled, sinking back. “I'm not even quite sure where it is, and I can feel it in my teeth—also, how much it doesn't care for anything other than fish hunting.”

Astrid snorted. “Hey now, I should be able to use it, should a situation turn well and truly dangerous for me. But, really, yes, these types of things, the nation-y style things, they know what their part in the world is. This one is a long jagged spear with a rope on the end so I can haul in the big prey. Nothing romantically more dangerous about it than it already is—and nothing less so. It's old. It weighs on the world, and it feels right in my hand when I pick it up and throw it. I feel like a wizard, casting lightning for a heartbeat, and then I'm all hunter again. That's all it is.”

“Feels like it should be more,” Åland mumbled. “Still is more, in a lot of ways.”

“Wellllll,” Faroes stretched out the word, “I've never really had to use the rope when I take it out and miss, if you know what I mean. That's always pretty impressive. I've seen Anko's axe do that, too, of course, obviously, but mine _flies_ back, y'know? What can I say, I won the random extension of landed-ness lottery. Anyway, now you know where it is. If you dare to take it.”

“I won't,” he came closer again, still damp, but warming nicely. “I won't. No matter how good an idea it seems.”

“Those ideas aren't really worth the space in your head,” Faroes decided. “But I'm glad I got to take you out in the storm. It was marvelous.”

“You really think that, don't you?”

Oh. So he couldn't really feel it, then. Like England, and Iceland, and even a bit like, though it seemed traitorous to think it, Denmark. At least Anko enjoyed knowing that she was over-joyed. No one had really understood since Father. Still, he didn't sound miffed about it. Just wondering, out here in the dark, that she had loved the weather she pulled him into.

“I really do.”

He sighed. Maybe just breathed out. “I kind of want to be a bit mad at you. I'm soaked through, and all my wild plans are hopeless. But you know what? You like wild weather. You like storms.”

“I really do,” even if she was only saying something to say it.

This laugh was a short little burst of amazement, glowing against her skin. “I've never—not once, met anyone like you, Astrid.”

“Oh, plenty of people—”

“No people _dance_ through a storm just to admire a weapon, and make it off limits at the same time. No people remember to hold onto their victims just to be sure they see the whole of it, too.”

“You're a friend, not a victim. And anyone would do it. I mean, if they were as fond of my islands and their weather as I am. We'd all do it.”

“And now you sound like Poland,” he scoffed.

She sighed. “I—I love this. I know you have other things going on. I know that. The letters have been nice and the visits. Discount robbery on furniture or not. But we talk about the war and our families, and—a storm just is. My mountains just are. My place in the sea just is. I love that. You've seen it. What do you have that is immutable? I want to know that as much as I want to show you every rock as the wind rushes past.”

Åland's fingers loosened their hold since the first time she had grabbed them. He breathed out, before pulling her hands up, and not experly breathed on their hands to get some more warmth flowing It was probably a good thing, Astrid admitted to herself. At last, the coldness of the clinging rain water was beginning to make itself partially known. Once she saw Åland back to his ship, she was going straight back to her house, and curl up under every blanket she owned. If she got dry enough before she fell asleep she might even cozy up to Tyr, as ludicrous as that notion seemed.

“Sunrises,” Åland coughed. “I love seeing the sun rise. Clear and blue in the summer. Or the peachy pink it gets when winter's in the air. It's—I love the way the light chases away the dark, not in a flash, like electric light, but this brilliant building song of color.”

Oh how she wanted to laugh at this. At the sweetness expressed by someone who scowled his way though every 'good morning.' But the little cough, for all that he sounded so determined to tell her, managed to hold Faroes back just enough not to laugh outright, or tease him. It was such an admiring love, compared to her fierce joy in thunder, but then again, he was always someone who had more going on then she ever seemed to truly comprehend. “I like knowing that.”

“You do? Of course, you do.”

“I hope you have a lot of sunrises, ahead.”

He sighed. “Thanks. You brought that torch. Can we turn it on now?”

“Afraid of the dark?”

“Not really—ignoring the living weaponry in here with us. If that won't creep around at the edges of my dreams, not sure what will. Just wanted to see things a bit more clearly.”

Astrid let go of his hand to reach for the strap holding the torch to her body, and flicked the 'on' switch. The lightbulb came on sleepily yellow, and she turned it to the walls, making the barren emptiness of the shed surrenoud them. On the floor her harpoon lay, looking bone white and innocent in its steel hulled glory. Just a sharp spear that wanted to take her fishing. “What's the prettiest sunrise you've ever seen?”

Jakob paused, his gaze still fixed on the deadly barbs that made the point of her weapon. Astrid willingly let him stew in his own consideration for a whole second, before raising her eyebrows at him. “Well?”

“It's a bad question. They're all pretty.”

“Okay, best—no, the one you remember most often?”

“That's silly—” he paused again, and then over the tapping of the rain, “November, 1921. I almost remember which day, or I think I should, but the date's gone. I was at Finland's main house. There had just been a sharp frost. When the sun came up everything glittered. He had this hedge in the back yard, and it still had some leaves, and they were bright red, with icy all over. The light was clear. Finland gave us coffee.”

His voice took her breath away, imagining the early cold seeping through the windows as coffee was passed around. “Sounds wonderful.”

“It—it wasn't really. I was mad with Finland, and, by extension, everyone in his house at that point. Which was everyone. You know, new nation, and all the things connected to that going on for Finland [4]. Karelia had to deal with a lot of it, that day. I think I even yelled at Finland that I didn't like coffee.”

“Yikes.”

Jacob rolled his eyes. “I really don't like Finland's coffee. It can get up and do jumping jacks, with how strong he brews it. But, yeah. I was a brat. Karelia spent the day teaching me a special knitting pattern she likes to use. That's why I remember it so often.”

That one brought Faroes up short. “You like to knit?”

“It's something to do, so, yeah,” he shrugged, not quite meeting her eyes. “I just don't like to have my hands idle.”

“You know I want to see some examples now,” Faroes practically crowed, rather to his obvious embarrassment. How grand. Absolutely grand that he liked to knit. Probably more than she did. He seemed to have the patience to keep even tension while knitting. “I'd show you mine right now, but, well, all of my shawls are a bit loose in some areas and very tight in others.”

“You know, you can always—”

“Pay attention when I'm working? I know why everything I make is lumpy. I just don't have te patience. Of course you have the patience. You're excellent like that.”

For a moment, it was like all movement in his face slammed shut like curtains for blocking out the wind, Faroes had the interesting notion that Åland had stopped thinking for that moment. He shook himself like a dog coming in from a rain storm. “Not excellent, just me,” he mumbled, glancing at the harpoon once more. “I do need to go.”

“I know you do,” Astrid sighed. “I'll see you to your ship. The wind is going pretty fierce right now.”

He nodded , and helped her pull the door open. As they stepped into the rain, Astrid found herself glancing toward him, even in the dark. Their hands grasped one another against the storm. She would miss him. New reports weren't good enough—even if they did say the war would soon be over.

* * *

**Footnotes**

[1] From 1535-1856 trade on the Faroe Islands was basically given away to anyone the Danish Crown liked. It was sort of like a consolation prize: “Here, I like you, but can't give you a knighthood. Have this trade monopoly instead. It's like a lordship with over 500 serfs, just without the title.” After the 1560s the trade monopoly mostly belonged to Dutch merchant houses, although it got passed around every few generations. By the mid 1800s the economy was so corrupt and inflation was so high, that most Faroese turned to piracy. If you could be arrested and killed for selling your sheep's wool to your neighbor rather than going to Torshavn and selling it to the trading house for a negative three pennies worth of profit, why not say “fuck the police” and start hijacking those boats filled with cloth and furniture that passed by your islands, instead? The result would be the same if you were caught, and you could get a lot more cool stuff. One of the official excuses for piracy was “salvaging.” However, one of the conditions of opening the Faroes as a free market in 1856 was that the Faroese had to curtail their plundering. Which they actually did!

[2] Beer bottling was known of, but rare in Europe during the war. Between rationing, and the need for glass and aluminum for the war effort on both sides, having beer bottles would be a bit of a treat. I haven't been able to find anything on the situation in the Faroes in regards to rationing. As far as I can tell, the alcohol restrictions that Britain imposed were not in effect on the islands, but I don't know. Either way, it seemed reasonable to assume that bottled beer would be a little special, because of general rarity.

[3] The Faroe Islands were the site of some advanced radar operations to keep Germans from launching surprise air attacks on Britian from the north (There was a great worry that Norway would be converted into one giant airfield, basically, and while that did not exactly happen—Norway's ports being extremely up-to-date and well used, the German Navy preferred to use Norway as a staging ground, rather than build too many new air fields for the Luftwaffe, which would have been prime targets for the Norwegian resistance, in any case—had the war gone on longer, it probably would have). The RDF stations were set up and initially manned by Canadian troops.

It was common for British Troops and the Faroese to go to dances together. Although the Faroes almost certainly knew about swing dancing before 1942, dances like these would be the first time Astrid, the character, would have a chance to learn them. Astrid is probably kidding herself a bit if she thinks that Jakob had never seen swing before—but she missed out on the waltz, and she is going to enjoy this new dance form in all of its glory. She is a sophisticated and cosmopolitan woman, after all.

[4] One of the things going on is Åland's own attempt to gain independence from Finland, and potentially become part of Sweden's house. The Finnish ambassadors had managed to draw out the question in the League of Nations for nearly a year, to make the independence appear a less pressing issue. It worked, much to the irritation of the people on the isles who, before the League of Nations were involved, had overwhelmingly desired return to Sweden. Obviously Jacob is glossing a bit over this part.


End file.
